A note from Ellen Kuzenchak:

The Stitchers have three 10 foot long hand quilting frames to give to anyone who wants them.  Please call Ellen for more information.  Her number is on the membership list. They need to be picked up on Thursday, March 16.  Call to make sure someone will be here (Stitchers are not meeting that day).

Free Quilt Patterns

The other day I was thinking about how many free quilt patterns that there are on the web. Then I set out to make a list of as many sites as I could find and share them here. There are more than what's on this list but these are the ones that I think have the best designs.

Riley Blake Designs has tons of patterns. Most are simple with one block repeats and simple borders but there are a few really unique ones. Cinema is one that's interesting and, I think, could be changed to make it veteran's size.

Jinny Beyer has several free patterns and they are more complex than most free patterns. There are even a few bargello designs.

In The Beginning fabrics has lots of patterns and there is a lot of variety in designs. You are bound to like something on their page.

Blank Quilting has a couple dozen free patterns.

Pat Sloan has a bunch of patterns and Traffic Jam would be great for scraps.

Andover Fabrics has TONS of patterns. Sherwood is one that could be a veteran's quilt by eliminating the outer border and making the middle border a little wider.

Hoffman Fabrics has a decent collection of free patterns.

Robert Kaufman has pages and pages of free patterns!

About.com has 5 pages of patterns.

Michael Miller has a lot of "modern" quilt patterns.

Clothworks has about 100 free quilt and project patterns.

Fabri-Quilt has a nice variety of patterns.

Windham Fabrics as 33 pages of patterns!

Timeless Treasures has 19 pages of patterns.

Of course Bonnie Hunter has THE best collection of scrap quilt patterns.

There's a Pinterest Board for free patterns and there's even a Facebook page for free patterns!

If you are looking for a new pattern maybe one of these sites will have something you like. If you have a site that I don't have listed here leave a link in the comments.

How to Clean an Iron

Today at Friday Sewing Vicki spent the entire day ironing about 25 yards of fabric, some of which is for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. With all her fabric starched she will be ready to start cutting and sewing! She starches her fabric with her homemade starch and used a lot of starch today - about 75 ounces which after a while builds up on her iron and makes a big burned on mess which looked like this:

 

She cleaned the iron over the sink with water and a Magic Eraser and in no time at all it looked like this:

 

The nice thing about sewing together for two days is that we can leave our stuff overnight. We'll return in the morning for Saturday Sewing. I'll post more pictures late Saturday.

 

Happy sewing.

In search of bad fabric

I am doing some more testing of my process for removing excess dye from fabric that has bled. I'm in search of bleeding fabrics to test. If you happen to have a fabric that you know for sure bleeds I'd really appreciate 1/4 - 1/2 yard of it. I'll be at the meeting Tuesday if you can bring it then.

Thanks,
Vicki

About the free fabric

Got your attention?

Estelle asked me to post the following:

Dear Members,

 

During our December meeting, Mary Ann from Parks and Rec, announced that she had access to lots of fabric someone purchased at a storage auction.  I volunteered to check it out.  What I found was a huge number of plastic garbage bags filled with all types of fabric.  It includes good quality garment, drapery, upholstery, fake fur fabrics, and a smaller amount of quilting cotton. I think the owner must have had a sewing business.  I sorted through all the bags as they were not separated by type.  Mary Ann has another person who's group makes tote bags for a cause so I left a portion of the heavier weight fabric there for her.  I sorted through the rest and separated anything I thought might be useful for charity quilts.  There are also boxes of unused patterns.  There are multiple copies of most and they include clothing (adult and children), home dec., doll clothes, dog clothes, stuffed toys, purses, etc.  They appear to be from the past ten years or so.

 

Some of the heavier fabrics would be great for bags and there are some fairly large pieces for bigger projects.  The fake fur would be great for costumes or stuffed toys  If you would like to look at the dress and home dec fabrics please let me know and I will bring the fabrics to the January meeting.  If you can't use any perhaps you have friends that sew or belong to other groups that could use the fabric and patterns. 

 

I will bring everything I have put aside for quilts.  I will also bring the boxes of patterns to the next meeting.

 

Please let me know if you have an interest in the garment and/or home dec fabrics. I have about 16 heavy bags of it and I don't want to bring them unless there is some interest.

 

Estelle 

Annie's Quilter

The middle quilt in this photo is one of the quilts donated by our West Coast member, Annie. When this one came in we were all impressed with the beautiful quilting. You can't see it in this photo but the white space is filled with beautiful feathers. Annie said that she sent to a quilter in Michigan. I thought it might be a blogger that I follow and I confirmed that today. Terri Watson saw this photo on my blog and commented about the quilt and mentioned that she did indeed quilt it. Terri blogs and quilts at Threadtales. She is a professional machine quilter and always has a pretty quilt to show on her blog.

greetings

HAPPY THANKSGIVING DAY! to all my friends and fellow quilters.
I am thankful for you all.
blessings,
Karen Arbaugh

Fabrics that "Bleed"

Posted by Becky

If you've ever experienced fabric whose colors bled, and haven't we all - you'll want to check out Barbara Brackman's blog on the subject. Barbara turned to Vicki for advice on a quilt with bleeding red fabrics. Following Vicki's advice Barbara had success with her quilt top. 

Barbara also introduces us to St. Hunna, the Patron Saint of Laundresses.

Here's the link:

http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2013/11/running-reds.html

Veteran's quilts dilemma - need your feedback!

Last night at the meeting I offered to quilt as many veteran’s quilts as I can get done between now and the November meeting. Today I got started on some that I already have and decided to get some quilt backs washed and read to load on the longarm. That’s when I realized

WE ARE ALMOST OUT OF QUILT BACKING!

I have enough to do 6 quilts and will use 3 of those on the quilts I brought home last night. So we need to do one of 2 things. Either I need to get backing with the tops ( the backings need to be 4: larger than the quilt on all 4 sides) OR I can order 2 more bolts of quilt backing.

I did some looking on line today and found a source for backing fabric at $8/yard and I think a bolt is usually about 15 - 18 yards. To get 2 more bolts of fabric would be about $180 + shipping so let’s just say $200.

1.5 yards of backing fabric is enough for 2 quilts so that works out to about $6/quilt. The backing that we bought in January has backed a LOT of quilts.

We are good on batting. I just opened the last roll and that should last us a while.

I believe we have about $600 in the treasury and will have membership money rolling in in January.

My recommendation is to order the backing fabric. It saves the members a lot of money on fabric for quilt backs so we can make more quilts.

I’m sorry I didn’t bring this up last night but I just didn't think to check the supplies before I came to the meeting. But I want to get a decision quickly so I can get on with quilting all of the tops you have ready. So would you please leave a comment on this post and let me know your thoughts.

If anyone has any other ideas please share them!

lovin' our meetings!

Last nights' meeting ( 8/13) was wonderful, with so many quilts to see, ideas & information to share AND yummy refreshments! Thank you, Julie & Nancy!  Thanks too to all the members who are participating in our block-of-the- month providing enough blocks for veterans quilts. Becky and Betsy are doing such a great job keeping us inspired and learning and being productive and having fun doing so.

Remember: Quilts of Honor Quilt Show at Quantico on Oct. 4-6,  and sewing & quilt expo. in Fredericksburg Oct. 3-5.
Sorry, no pictures. :(

Batting Scraps

Does anyone in the group use batting bits for dog beds or pillows? I always have a lot of batting bits and strips left over from trimming quilts. I no longer make the dog beds but would be happy to bring someone a bag of bits if you can use them.